Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Drawing on a wide range of subject expertise, the Wisconsin Online Resource Center (Wisc-Online) is a digital library of web-based learning resources known as "learning objects". "Learning objects" are essentially self-contained small chunks of learning that can be embedded in a learning activity, lesson, unit or course. The site includes over 2170 of these objects, and new objects are being developed continuously. Visitors will need to complete a short registration form before they are allowed to access all of the materials on the site, but they can certainly get a sense of what the site includes by checking out the "New Learning Objects" area. Here they will find everything from animated presentations showing how the pH level of a cleaning solution is controlled to an interactive activity on industrial automation. Also, visitors are also encouraged to sign up to receive their RSS feed. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu/

Every citizen of the United States (and anyone else with an interest in politics) should take a close look at the MAPLight.org website. This rather innovative database brings together three unique data sets including bill texts, legislative voting records, and supporting and opposing interests for each bill. This data allows users to determine the contributions given by interests supporting and opposing each bill and the average donations given to legislators voting "Yes" and "No" on each bill. Currently, MAPLight.org covers the California Legislature and the U.S. Congress and first-time visitors may wish to start by watching the six-minute introductory video which explains all of the bells and whistles on the site. After that, visitors can click on either the "California" or the "U.S. Congress" sections of the site to learn about current voting patterns related to interest groups (such as teachers unions and the health insurance industry), legislators, and pending bills. Moving on, the site also offers up a presidential money race widget that can be customized in a variety of ways. Visitors may also wish to sign up to receive email updates and they are also welcome to send along feedback. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu/

The movement of Christian missionaries across the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is perhaps one of the most studied aspects of religious history in recent times. This very engrossing online digital collection brings together over 10,000 photographs culled from various missionary photographers. The Internet Mission Photography Archive (IMPA) is based at the University of Southern California and includes photographs from the collections of the Moravian Church, the Leipzig Mission, the Norwegian Missionary Society, and three other organizations. In this collection, visitors can view churches, school buildings, mission teachings, religious practices, and a constellation of subjects and themes. Users can browse around at their leisure, create their own dedicated collection, and also search the archive by words, contributing organization, and country. Religious historians, photographers, and others will certainly want to visit this collection several times. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu/

Signed into law on July 1, 1968, the historic Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was a major step towards creating a world that had the potential to be a bit safer from the threat of nuclear annihilation. This particular collection of documents related to the NPT was brought together through the diligence of staff members at the National Security Archive's Nuclear Documentation Project and released to the public in July 2008. The site starts off with a narrative essay which describes the backdrop to the signing of the NPT in 1968, along with offering a bit of additional context about the international political climate at the time. The site's real gems are the 34 documents which include State Department cables, internal planning documents, and other items that reveal the nature of the political machinations involved with this process. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu/

The website of the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University offers visitors to its site a digital feast of images of East Africa from 1860-1960. A portion of the Winterton Collection of East African photographs, acquired by the library at the end of 2002, has already been digitized, and the entire collection of photographs has been inventoried and is available in a PDF document, under the Inventory tab. The photographs currently available on the website are divided into album views and individual sample images from the collection. The sample images are a mixture of landscapes and portraits, both formal and informal. By clicking on a photograph, a visitor can see a larger image of the photograph, as well as a caption that includes a date, location, and description, if known. The album view, with its black background and white text, extremely high quality image scans, and excellent organization makes it easy to navigate and enjoy. The photographs were scanned directly from the albums' pages, so a visitor almost feels as if they are paging through the physical albums. The photographs' original captions are legible in the albums when the photograph is magnified, but are also reprinted underneath the albums, with no zooming required.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Not enough people know about the world of musculoskeletal radiology, but this site can address some of those glaring gaps in medical and physiological knowledge. Created by Doctor Michael Richardson at the University of Washington, this online muscle atlas covers the lower and upper extremity, and is primarily designed for use by health science professionals. The site also includes some teaching and instructional materials related to radiology. Visitors will note that the site contains a table of contents, and all of the major muscles are listed alphabetically, from the Adductor Brevis to the Vastus Medialis. Additionally, for each muscle, visitors can view a high-quality image of the related muscle groups and the function of each muscle in question. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu/